Late Hammond attorney C.B. Forgotston, a go-to source for reporters and state legislators during the Jindal and Foster administrations, would have worn out his keyboard over the last few weeks if he were still alive, says Jeremy Alford in his latest column about the impending governor’s race.
“I know what the columnist and blogger would have said this week when U.S. Sen. John Kennedy announced, after much speculation, that he would not be running for governor,” Alford writes. “Because C.B. already wrote it, seven years ago.”
Forgotston wrote back then, an essay with the same spirit as Kennedy’s announcement:
“Making a decision of what one is NOT going to do is NOT something one takes lightly. After NOT conferring with my family, friends and supporters I have reached a final decision about what I am NOT going to do,” Forgotston wrote. “Among the many things that I am NOT going to do, I am NOT going be a candidate for governor in this fall’s election.”
Though there’s plenty of uncertainty surrounding next year’s governor’s race in light of Kennedy’s announcement, Alford says, we know two things for certain.
“For starters, Forgotston was on to something,” he writes. “Secondly, Kennedy must be happier than a hound dog sitting on a porch chewing on a catfish head.”
The senator’s decision leaves Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, and businessman and education advocate Eddie Rispone, a Republican, as the only announced candidates for the next year’s big race.
Read the full column for Alford’s analysis on the race going forward.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
